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Jennifer Bradley

FarmVille: The Garden in the Machine | In Media Res - 4 views

mediacommons.futureofthebook.org/...farmville-garden-machine

Social Informatics social media networking gift economy online community

shared by Jennifer Bradley on 04 Jun 12 - No Cached
  • Jennifer Bradley on 04 Jun 12
     
    Here's an interesting article about the social mechanics of Farmville and how it mimics the ideals of "gift economy" often demonstrated by non-western, "primitive" cultures, such as those of native Papua New Guineans.
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  • Jennifer Bradley on 04 Jun 12
     
    The in-text link to the article: " The High-Tech Gift Economy" is also worth a read. It compares the proliferation of shareware and open source software to the political movement of anarcho-communism.
  • Meaghan Corbett on 04 Jun 12
     
    Oh dear. I wasted many an hour on Farmville back when it was big...way more than I'd like to admit. That's a neat connection between the digital farm and the real world--and how people's obsession over the game (though I don't know if it's still the case...I deactivated my Farm because it was, well, eating up my entire life!) speaks to something deeper, like the desire for community.
  • Anton Angelo on 04 Jun 12
     
    There are some failures in the analysis made in the "High Tech Gift Economy". Thinking that the internet was created by the military is a bit of a canard: in my opinion it was the most inventive misuse of military money by a university. Also there is a conception that the 'net runs on the love of pixies and nerds, where in reality it runs on commercial networks successfully making money. I'd much prefer pixie net, but it just ain't so :(
  • Jorge Arganza on 04 Jun 12
     
    I remember playing farmville and cafeville for a few months. They were catchy, but I felt they were a bit off. The idea of being chained to the computer so my crops would not spoil or my food would not overcook was draining, so I finally gave them up. Plus, the more I read about Zygna, the less I liked them as a company. Here is an blog post about how farmville and the like induce anxiety by design. http://consumerist.com/2010/12/game-developer-says-farmville-is-designed-to-be-negative-and-draining.html
  • Anton Angelo on 04 Jun 12
     
    That's really interesting Jorge: I used to play civilization, but it doesn't help me relax, it just winds me up for hours, in much the same way. Then I discovered Osmos, and have a game that actually feels calm and meditative, bizarrely enough. I had enough of those damn smirking pigs, that's for sure: no wonder the birds are angry.
  • Natalie DeAngelo on 04 Jun 12
     
    I never got into Farmville myself, but I do remember my news feed on Facebook being overrun with notifications that friends wanted to share their crops and farm animals with me. I got the feeling there was a mob mentality to the game and I was personally turned off by the idea of buying into a product simply because many of my friends did so. The game shows how much our lives can be affected by technology when a "game" dictates how we schedule much of our time just to ensure our imaginary crops don't wither before we can harvest them.
  • Jorge Arganza on 04 Jun 12
     
    Anton, I agree, Civ would keep me up for hours and hours, but I would argue that Civ is different from the farmville model because it is not oriented towards a repetitive (and time based) requirement that one has to come back to the computer a certain time later to click on stuff. Even the social aspect of farmville is a kind of pressure to get more friends into the game just to unlock more stuff, rather than to share in a community effort or a competition.
  • Lilia p on 05 Jun 12
     
    You should definitely look at Jesse Schell's lecture (I think maybe next week?) I put it as optional but do take a look.
  • Carrie Pyne on 05 Jun 12
     
    I do not understand the appeal of Farmville or any other of the 'games' on FB. I guess I also don't understand some people's obsession with their FB or Twitter accounts. If I want to keep in touch with my friends and family, I text or phone them directly - I feel more connected by having direct interactions with them versus reading their wall or sending them a 'gift' for their fake farm. I feel relieved that I no longer have a FB account, and stay in close contact with those people that I really want to keep in contact with. I don't think the 'social' aspect of FB is a substitute for F2F interactions with people you actually like instead of Like.
  • Jennifer Bradley on 05 Jun 12
     
    Jorge, that's an interesting blog post, and does point out one of the big reasons why I stopped playing. It was fun for a bit, watching my crops grow, and even uplifting when my facebook friends helped out my crops or sent me gifts without my ever asking, but the planting schedules and need for "x" amount of friends in order to expand made it get old pretty quickly. And I refused to spend real money it.
  • jcinthelibrary on 06 Jun 12
     
    I am sadly one of the people who is currently in the middle of an obsession with a Facebook game. I was able to get away without ever touching Farmville but then they introduced a Hunger Games-based Facebook game... which is basically Farmville with Hunger Games characters. So, yeah, I know how many hours can be wasted on such games. It's really sad; I try to keep my feed as free from my posts about it as possible for my friends' sakes. I remember there was an article in the NYT a while ago about the fact that these games can be just as much of an addiction as more nefarious-seeming things. I didn't think it was possible but then again... I've also spent quite a lot of time collecting hundreds of items that I will probably never use for a mediocre game. :(
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